Mayo Clinic: antidepressants and alcohol, a toxic mix?
It seems innocent enough, a casual drinker who also suffers complications of depression or anxiety issues who continues to drink while on their medication. Frankly I know several people who I am certain are in this category. This Mayo Clinic article by Dr. Hall-Flavin points out this could lead to disaster of various proportions though.
For starters, alcohol IS a depressant. Adding it to a depressed person's psyche along with medications that monkey with your brain chemistry may lead to worse depression, aggravated side-affects of the medication, intensified drowsiness and interrupted sleep patterns, monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI's) combined with certain foods and alcohol can cause dangerous spikes in blood pressure, and a higher risk of alcohol dependence (addiction).
Not so innocent, is it? I caution you to beware if you are on medication AND drinking alcohol. It is not such a simple equation as taking an aspirin and cough syrup. Both drugs alter the brain. Too much brain altering and the list of troubles could be endless, leading to more medications for more symptoms, when the source cause could be simple over-medicating at home, legally, in what seems to be a very safe way to relax at the end of the day or enjoy a meal with friends. ~jd
Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Fruit Juices Block Common Drugs
Grapefruit, Orange, Apple Juices Decrease Absorption of Many Often-Used Drugs
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Aug. 19, 2008 -- Grapefruit, orange, and apple juices block drugs commonly used to treat infections, allergy, transplant rejection, cancer, and high blood pressure.
In 1991, David G. Bailey, PhD, and colleagues found that grapefruit juice increased blood concentrations of the blood pressure drug Plendil to possibly dangerous levels. Grapefruit juice, they later learned, slows down a key liver enzyme that clears Plendil -- and about 40 other drugs -- from the body.
Now Bailey reports that grapefruit, orange, and apple juices decrease the absorption of several important medications:
- The allergy drug Allegra, available generically as fexofenadine
- The antibiotics ciprofloxacin (Cipro, Proquin), levofloxacin (Levaquin), and itraconazole (Sporanox)
- The beta-blocker blood pressure drugs atenolol (Tenormin), celiprolol, and talinolol
- The transplant-rejection drug cyclosporine (Gengraf, Neoral)
- The cancer chemotherapy etoposide (Toposar, Vepesid)
"This is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure we'll find more and more drugs that are affected this way," Bailey says in a news release.
Bailey revealed the new findings in a report to the 236th annual meeting of the American Chemical Society.
A substance in grapefruit juice called naringin seems to be the culprit. The compound apparently blocks OATP1A2, a transporter molecule in the gut, which carries some drugs from the small intestine into the blood. Orange juice contains hesperidin, a naringin-like substance. The culprit in apple juice remains unidentified.
"The concern is loss of benefit of medications essential for the treatment of serious medical conditions," Bailey says.
In their studies, Bailey and colleagues had healthy volunteers take fexofenadine with either a glass of grapefruit juice, a glass of water mixed with naringin, or pure water. Taking the drug with grapefruit juice or the naringin mixture halved the amount of drug that reached the bloodstream.
People should take their pills only with water, advises Bailey, a professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. He suggests that people taking medications should check with their doctor or pharmacist before taking medications with fruit juices or whole fruits.
© 2008 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.
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